Festival of Murder by Ross Macfarlane KC, Chapter 1: Falling or Flying?

Hard to tell, when it happens so young.

Or maybe it’s the anaesthetic?

And how old is he in the dream/memory? Four years old? Younger?

And there’s his mum. In her bright red coat. What a beautiful woman she was.

Is she falling? Or is she flying?

Falling

Or flying?

*****

‘Mr Wood, Mr Wood!’

No response.

‘Mr Wood - wake up!’

Was that a slap on the face? Surely that wasn’t a slap on the face? Surgeons don’t normally slap patients in the face, do they? Especially not in the middle of surgery.

William Wallace (“Wally”) Wood (aged 67 and a half) opened his eyes. He was the patient on the operating table. Wood squeezed his eyes, forced some blinks, clearing the sleepy tears. He looked up. Bright lights. Pipes on the ceiling. White walls. A head popped into Wood’s view. Light blue surgeon’s hat. Exaggerated goggles (as if the surgeon had decided to go skiing in the middle of the procedure); pale blue mouth covering. Under the surgical mask, a smile crinkling through the material. Smile on the face, but in the voice, the echo of a tiny bit of anxiety?

‘Are you awake?’

Wood tried to speak. But the attempt at speaking felt like turning the key in the ignition of an old car and trying to start it up. ‘Uh-huh?’ Why did his voice sound so odd?

The surgeon leaned in. ‘Mr Wood - we have a problem…’

This is not the news that you want to hear from the surgeon in the middle of your operation.

‘Uh-huh?’ (Key in the old ignition again).

‘Yes.’ The surgeon pointed: ‘You see that pipe coming out of you?’

Wood looked over. There was a thin, transparent plastic pipe coming out of him.

The surgeon continued: ‘That’s a burgundy colour.’

Wood looked at the pipe again. It looked to Wood more of a ‘Persian Red’, but this was not the time for a colour-chart debate: ‘Uh-huh?’

‘Well, that should be more rosé by now….’

‘Uh-huh?

‘Mr Wood, that means that something has gone wrong with your procedure. I’m afraid you’re bleeding out now…’

‘Oh.’

‘So we’re going to have to open you up again. To fix the problem.’ The medic put a clip-board on the patient’s chest and handed him a pen. ‘But we’ll need your permission for that. Could you sign this…’

*****

‘Don’t tell me - when you woke up, you owned a time-share in Portugal!’

One of the great things about the Cumberland Bar is that - quite apart from the great pub grub and the oceans of available whiskies - when you can find the appropriate spot or little snug area, then you can avoid the worst excesses of modern life outside.

William Wallace Wood (‘Wally” to a handful of intimates) sat in the snug with his two drouthy cronies, Emeritus Professor John Douglas Douglas (teased in the 1970s with the provocative nickname. ‘Double-D’ - later reduced to the more sedate moniker ‘JD’) and retired physician Charlie Holliday (reduced - inevitably - to “Doc Holliday’ or just ‘Doc’).

Wood smiled: ‘No such luck. But when I woke up again,’ thumbs up, ‘the problem had been fixed.’

The Doc leaned forward: ‘Enlarged prostate - common in men of our age.’

JD smiled: ‘Still - it’s nice at our age to have anything enlarged down there.’

Wood pointed a censorious finger: ‘Enough!’

Doc asked: ‘And how is the flow of urine now?’

Wood smiled: ‘Pissing like a horse!’

JD grinned: ‘And there, my friend, the resemblance ends…’

This festival of low-level smut was interrupted by the appearance of Wood’s granddaughter, Abbie. Tall, statue-esque and model-esque (and all the other ‘esque’s that make grown men bite their index finger and utter an internal ‘hummina-hummina’). This young woman was mixed-heritage and with hair so beautiful that passers-by wanted to pat it. Abbie Wood was 19 and head-turningly attractive. Spending the summer with her retired grampa. Abbie was intelligent, beautiful and confident. Other women hated her.

JD looked up: ‘So, Adorable Abbie, I have one question for you.’

‘Yes?’

‘Will you marry me?’

‘Can I think about it?’

JD smiled: ‘Of course. On the plus side of the ledger, I have my own house and car, and I have a good sense of humour.’

Abbie mock-frowned: ‘And how old are you, again?’

‘Sixty six…’

Abbie laughed: ‘And suddenly we have my answer…’

‘Have you never dated an older man, Abbie?’

‘Of course - my last boyfriend was twenty-two.’

‘So there it is - I’m three times as good as he was.’

‘And ten times the trouble. The answer is no.’

JD feigned hurt: ‘Foiled again!’

Abbie leaned in: “Crabbed age and youth cannot live together” - Shakespeare said that. So - it must be true.’

At this point, Doc, stood up from his seat.

JD looked around: ‘And where are you going, you fool? You’re meant to be my ‘wing-man’…’

Doc raised a finger to the ceiling: ‘To pee or not to pee - that is the question. I said that.’

Doc shimmied past his buddies, left the snug and walked in the direction of the pub’s Victorian lavatories. Abbie smiled at Wood: ‘Grampa Wally - get your coat - the slow cooker will be finished in ten minutes - then it’ll start beeping. We don’t want complaints from old Mrs Cunningham upstairs.’

Wood stood up and made a theatrical gesture to JD: ‘I go and it is done - the bell invites me’ Macbeth - Act 2, scene 1.’

JD shook his head: ‘Bloody hell - can you people not act like a normal family for once? Maybe just sit down and watch “Love Island” or something?’

Wally Wood smiled: ‘My love of Shakespeare skipped a generation - and I am now routinely out-Barded by my own ‘Beatrice’…’

JD frowned, looked up again and shot Abigail another uncomprehending look. She smiled: ‘Much Ado About Nothing’.

The drouthy crony shook his head: ‘I’ve gone right off you, Abbie. I have some disappointing news….’

‘Don’t tell me - the wedding’s off?’

‘Correct. I’m looking for somebody with fewer brains and more wrinkles.’

‘I understand.’

At this point, Doc came back, squeezed past and took his place at the table: ‘Handy thing - that disabled upstairs toilet.’ He looked up: ‘What did I miss?’

Abbie picked up her grandfather’s coat: ‘Not a single thing, Doc.’ To her grampa: ‘Shall we?’

*****

The following morning – The Edinburgh Fringe

‘Looking forward to it?’

Wally Wood and Abbie were climbing up Dublin Street, heading into town. The granddaughter smiled. “Are you kidding - it’s the Edinburgh Festival, Grampa Wally and I - your favourite granddaughter…’

‘My only granddaughter…’

‘I refuse to stand corrected - I - your favourite granddaughter - will be at the centre of proceedings - working at The Fringe Office this year. So excited…’

*****

Wood and Abbie pushed their way along the street, onto the Royal Mile. Through the colourful, cheery, noisy Festival crowds. Tall, tall buildings across the road from the Tron Kirk – some as high as six stories up. It was as they were passing the Tron that it happened.

Almost out of the line of vision. Across the road. Something in the sky. Something moving. Falling or flying? Something falling. Plummeting? From the top of that old building. A red smear moving down the grey stone brickwork. Look up - look over - but too late. Given the bustle and the Festive throng, impossible to hear the sound that the red bundle made when it landed. But the screams in the crowd told you that all was not well. Wood narrowed his eyes and looked up. An open window at the top of the building.

Abbie hadn’t seen it. But she heard the screams across the road. ‘Grampa Wally - what do you think…’. Wood pointed to his watch. ‘I think that this is your first day at work and you can’t be late. Now - give yer old grampa a kiss on the cheek and be off with you.’ Abbie looked sceptical. Wood forced a smile: ‘I’ll go across and see what’s what - and I’ll tell you all about it at base camp later.’ Abbie remained sceptical. Wood pointed two joined fingers to the sky: ‘Scouts Honour”.

Abbie laughed: ‘You old fraud! You were never in the Scouts!

Wood put his hand on his heart. He smiled: ‘But - as a great man once said: “Always let your conscience be your guide”.’

Abbie frowned: ‘Gandhi?’

Wood chuckled: ‘Jiminy Cricket. Disney’s Pinocchio. 1940…’

Abbie laughed: ‘Damn you, old man!’

Wood nodded over to the crowd forming at the other side of the street: ‘I’ll go over and see what’s what. And you – my lovely one – you get to your work!’

Abbie made off and gave a smile and a wave: ‘Love you, gramps.’

‘Love you, pesky girl.’

*****

By the time that Wood got over there for a look-see, there were already two police officers on the scene shooing away the tourists (with little effect). The majority of onlookers were holding up their phones and filming what was happening inside the circle. What was it? A Fringe event? An American tourist asked one of the police officers if they had a flyer for the show. Wood pushed through into the centre of the crowd just in time to see one of the traffic police officers take off his coat - like a yellow, shiny winding sheet – and place it over the bundle that had landed. But it was not a bundle of clothes. It was a body. Just before the face was covered, Wood got a quick look. A woman. Early 80s? Silver hair. Well turned-out. Expensive bright red dressing gown. Wood felt a knot in his stomach. The police covered up the face. Wood looked up at the building. He craned his neck and looked further up again. An open window on the top floor. Wide open.

*****

JD frowned: ‘And what exactly is it that’s vexing you, Wally?’

Three pints of Guinness on the table in various levels of consumption. Three men in their 60s at various levels of inebriation. Wally Wood pursed his lips.

Doc Holliday nodded over: ‘He doesn’t look “vexed” - he looks “puzzled’.

JD nodded and asked again: ‘Then, what is it that “puzzles” you, Wally?’

Wood took a sip from his glass: ‘I’ve just told you that I saw a woman in her eighties throw herself out of a window and kill herself. Am I not allowed to be puzzled or vexed? I’ll leave it to you to decide which one.’

Doc smiled. ‘I know you…’. (People were always saying this. Was he so predictable?).

‘And?’

And - at some level - you know that women in their eighties don’t commonly throw themselves out of windows.’

Wood nodded. Maybe Doc Holliday did know him. Doc continued: ‘And you’ll know - from your old job as a High Court prosecutor - three things: One - it’s usually men who kill themselves, not women. Three times the number of men than women “pull the pin”. Two: the lady in the red dressing gown was the wrong age and class.’

JD furrowed his forehead: ‘What age do you have to be? Is like, old enough to buy a vape, kind of thing?’

‘Statistically - for women - it’ll be much younger than that lady. He sighed: ‘As if middle age wasn’t hard enough!’

The men sat in silence, taking it in. Then Wood spoke: ‘You said there were three reasons…’

Doc counted on his fingers: ‘Three: it was too messy. That’s why you’re puzzled, Wally. At some unconscious level, you understand the statistical unlikelihood of what you saw. Or thought you saw.’

Silence.

Wood nodded: ‘So I suppose the question is this: what would make a woman of that age do such a thing?

JD volunteered: ‘Maybe she got a bad Fringe review.’

*****

Festival of Murder continues tomorrow in ‘Not My Circus’